


The Box is the Best Part of the Present

by LadyLondonderry



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Fluff, Hybrids, M/M, animal adoption (its hybrids lol), homelessness if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-06-14 21:13:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15397569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyLondonderry/pseuds/LadyLondonderry
Summary: The hybrid bed sits unused on the floor at the end of Harry’s bed.





	The Box is the Best Part of the Present

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to make the summary sort of ominous sounding but I think that's been ruined by the title I chose. Whoops.
> 
> This is, um. Fluff. Or something. Self indulgent, that's what it is.
> 
> This is part of a Wordplay prompt challenge that a group of us are participating in for the prompt "Unused". To read the amazing fics that were written by the others on this prompt, [click here](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/unused/works), and to see all fics written as part of the challenge, [click here](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/wordplay_fic_challenge/works) or find the masterpost for this year’s challenge here.

The hybrid bed sits unused on the floor at the end of Harry’s bed.

— 

When Harry adopted a hybrid, it wasn’t because of an overwhelming desire to take care of someone. No, in fact it was rather the opposite; Harry lived alone and he liked that. Four years of university meant four years of roommates stealing his things and eating his food, followed by three years of Dave - the slightly hostile roommate who moved out in a hurry the day Harry found out Dave had been bringing home his girlfriend and having sex with her  _ in Harry’s bed. _ Why, Dave? Why?

So Harry was actually relishing his solo space and his alone time. Finally, the only decorations on the walls were his own tastefully hung posters and photos. Finally, he gets to do the dishes once a day and no fish smell mysteriously seeps from the bin. As much as he’d like to have a significant other to wake up to, he was pretty darn happy with the single life.

No, when Harry adopted a hybrid, it was because of a panicked call from Liam telling Harry that he was the cat’s last chance.

— 

“Harry, you know I wouldn’t call you if it weren’t important.”

“You called me last week to complain about your sister dyeing her hair purple.”

“Well I stand by that because it is  _ not _ her colour, but I see your point. Trust me though, Harry, this is important.”

“Right.” Harry has just gotten home from work and he’s trying to hold the phone in one hand while he uses the other to unbutton his terribly uncomfortable starchy shirt. “Come on then, spill. I want to be in a hot bath within the next ten minutes and you’re delaying bubbles time.”

“Well, you see, last night Ant saw someone skulking around in the back garden, so he called the police - you know, with all the break-ins in the neighborhood lately—”

“I don’t like where this is going.”

“But when the police arrived, we found out it wasn’t a human out there at all, it was a hybrid!”

“No,” says Harry.

“I haven’t even asked anything!”

“You’re going to ask me to adopt a hybrid. You feel sorry for it. Well why don’t you adopt it yourself, then?” Harry groans. “This is just like that time you caught a fish at the fete and made me take care of it.”

“You  _ loved _ Neymar! He was a great fish! But that’s not it at all! Well. I do feel sorry for him. But Ant is allergic! And the hybrid isn’t a kitten! He’s an adult, looks like he’s our age. You know hybrids almost never get adopted after they’re grown! The poor guy has no chance and I’ve accidentally gotten him sent to the pound, so now he could just sit there! For years! I feel awful, Harry!”

Harry sighs. “A hybrid is a big commitment,” he says. “And expensive! I’m barely making rent since David moved out as it is!”

“I’ll help,” Liam rushes to say. “I can pitch in with rent! And vet bills!”

“You haven’t talked to Ant about that, and I’m pretty sure he would have something to say.”

“Ant loves me, he’ll forgive me.”

“That’s probably not the best way to go about that.”

“Please, Harry? The hybrid he- he looked really scared, okay? I can’t stop thinking about him.”

Harry has managed to get most of the way naked by this point and he turns the tap on in the bath. “I’m not promising anything,” he says. “I didn’t grow up with a hybrid, I don’t know if I can do it.”

“But you’ll  _ try,” _ Liam stresses.

“Fine. Yes.” Harry adds bubbles. “I’ll try.”

After all, Liam wouldn’t call if it weren’t important.

— 

The adoption centre is crowded. It’s crowded and it smells like piss and Harry feels incredibly uncomfortable from the moment he walks in. 

Hybrids lounge everywhere, mostly asleep or feigning sleep, grooming and watching him while feigning disinterest. They’re all ages, and all variety of cat and dog, from long haired to short hair, swishing full tails or long, thin ones. Some people come to the adoption centre and immediately fall in love with a hybrid, generally the cuter young ones. They’re especially popular with empty nesters, or people with young kids who want their children to grow up with companions. 

Harry doesn’t know who he’s there for, all he has is a name, texted from Liam. Louis.

When he asks at the desk, the woman pulls up his file on her screen and then frowns. “We have a number of younger persians that have recently arrived,” she says. “They might be of more interest to you.”

“No thank you,” Harry says, trying to plaster a smile onto his face. “Now… Louis?”

She looks very clearly annoyed, tossing her braids over one shoulder. “Right,” she says. “It says here he’s actually just been given his shots, so he’ll be in the back. Would you like to schedule a time to come back when he’ll be out on the floor, or…?”

Something in Harry is telling him he doesn’t want to come back later. It goes against everything inside of him, the whole  _ I’ll just come to look  _ speech that he gave to Liam last night, but he finds himself saying “I’m actually here to adopt now, so if he’s just gotten his shots he should be all good to go, right?”

The girl glares at him. She prints out the appropriate paperwork - two pages, less than he fills out at a doctor visit - and hands him a pen. 

There’s a twenty pound fee to adopt, and after filling out the paperwork and getting his card charged, Harry follows closely at the girl’s heels as she leads him into the back, past two rooms of hybrids lazing about, through the room with the closed doors where the new kittens are housed (a brighter, friendlier space), to the back rooms where the walls seem darker, the bright furnishing from the earlier rooms absent.

There are only a handful of hybrids in these rooms, and Harry notices they’re all older, looking his own age if not significantly more mature. They also all look dazed, if not asleep. In the corner lays one, a scruffy haired hybrid in an oversized hoodie and sweats, curled into a ball and fast asleep. The girl shakes him none too gently by the shoulder and the hybrid awakes, blinking sluggishly, his pupils blown unnaturally, even in the soft lighting.

“They were, of course, lightly sedated for their shots. It should wear off in a few hours,” the girls says frankly, tugging at the arm of the hybrid’s hoodie to get him to sit up, stand. “This is Louis, his collar will have his identification number on it. If you return him within the next six months you will not be allowed to adopt another one for a year starting from the day of return. 

Harry scowls at her, at the way she discusses him like he’s a commodity. “Thank you,” he says, “I can take it from here.”

The hybrid is standing, although he doesn’t look particularly aware of his surroundings. Harry carefully slides one arm around his waist, to keep him upright. He’s got especially large, caramel cat ears atop his head, and a long furred tail lies limply behind him. There’s scruff on his cheeks and he looks like he could stand to eat an extra meal or two a day. He blinks, sluggish and calm, as he turns to stare at Harry.

Harry waits until the girl takes the hint with a huff and leaves. He wonders how much of her story is true, after all everyone knows that older hybrids are near impossible to place. He suddenly worries about the wellness of the other ones around the room… But he knows he can do nothing about it now.

“Come on,” he says in what he hopes is a comforting tone. “You ready to go home?”

The hybrid doesn’t respond, just tilts his head. Harry isn’t sure exactly how to get him home, since it seems like Louis barely has the wherewithal to remain standing, but he makes it a slow pace, practically holding the man next to him upright as they walk through the rooms back toward the entrance. 

When Harry buckles Louis into the passenger side of his car, he worries that Louis is going to come out of his sedation on the way home and have a proper freak out. He apparently needn’t have worried though, because by the time he’s getting into the driver’s side, Louis has slumped over, curling his legs up under him and closing his eyes. Harry looks over a few times on the drive but he rarely moves. He does wonder, at one point, whether his motor has gotten louder or if that really is a throaty purr coming from the hybrid next to him.

The adoption centre is crowded, but at least Harry’s taking Louis out of there. 

— 

The hybrid bed sat unused on the floor at the end of Harry’s bed.

And that’s because Louis refuses to sleep in it. 

The first month that was because Louis hid under Harry’s bed whenever Harry was home. Harry honestly wasn’t even sure how Louis managed to fit himself down there, and also was constantly worried that  _ this _ would be the night his cheap IKEA bed would finally collapse, and he’d have to rush Louis to the hospital in a panic. Still, he tried to give Louis his space and time to adjust. He would put his meals down on the floor next to his bed and leave the room in the hopes that at least Louis would put some meat on his bones.

The second and third months, it was because Louis slept curled up on Harry’s favourite wingback chair in the living room. The first day Harry came home to find Louis, skittish but staying put, laying poised across the back of his couch, he wanted to yell from excitement. He did  _ not _ do that because that would  _ definitely  _ scare him back under the furniture, but the thought was there.

Living with a hybrid (one who wasn’t hidden away at all hours) turned out to be a whole lot like living with a normal roommate, except Louis never spoke, didn’t leave dishes around the house, and didn’t care when Harry spent seven hours binge watching terrible Channel 4 programming. 

He was smart, though, Harry learned that very fast. He was actually pretty sure that Louis was able to speak, just didn’t like to. The biggest hint to Louis’s intelligence was the missing books on Harry’s bookshelves. Harry had a habit of buying books to read later, before inevitably forgetting and buying more. Suddenly his to-read piles were becoming disrupted, books going missing, and reappearing around the house with pages turned down, or dusty like they’d been stored under furniture. 

Harry was endeared, although also a little jealous - he hadn’t read those books yet! Couldn’t Louis have chosen something Harry had already read?

The fourth month, with the hybrid bed Harry had bought on the first day still sitting untouched at the foot of his own, winter struck with a vengeance. The cold seeped into Harry’s ancient flat with an animosity that all the radiators in the world couldn’t protect against. 

He wasn’t sure what to do for Louis, who clearly hated the cold the way he was constantly curled up practically pressed against the radiator under the window, but there wasn’t much that could be done about the temperature, so what he finally settled on was spending an obscene amount of money on new, soft, warm blankets in varying textures, hoping at least some of them would appeal to Louis. 

He put them all in the hybrid bed, even though Louis had never shown particular interest in it, hoping that it would lure him into creating a nest. 

And, well, it sort of worked. 

Because the hybrid bed still sat unused at the foot of Harry’s bed, but Harry woke up less than a week after buying the blankets because he was convinced his flat was on fire. He was so warm, weighted down as if he were being buried alive, sweat dripping down his back, only to realise that the room was still completely dark, still and silent. He wasn’t on fire, from what he could tell, but was instead buried under about nine blankets, eight of which had formerly been set on the hybrid bed.

On top of those nine blankets, though, was the big (heavy) surprise: Louis.

He had draped himself on top of the blankets that he had so carefully arranged, clearly choosing Harry as his heating source, and he was stretched out, comfortable and snuffling and out to the world.

Shit. Harry was going to have to die of heat stroke. Because there was no way he would dare try to move and risk waking Louis. This might be the proudest moment of Harry’s life. Louis trusted him. And needed him for warmth.

The hybrid bed sat unused on the floor at the end of Harry’s bed, but the hybrid slept atop him and life was good.

— 

The hybrid bed sits unused on the floor at the end of Harry’s bed, and it’s more of a joke than anything at this point. Louis pads after Harry around the house wherever he goes, and sits generally just out of reach, because that’s what “hanging out” is to a hybrid. He follows Harry around the house and steals his books and eats his biscuits and when Harry decides to watch terrible Channel 4 trash tv, if he stays still for long enough, Louis will sit on the other end of the couch, and work hard at acting terribly disinterested before draping himself across Harry and kneading his jumper when he’s not paying attention, a sound like a quiet motor coming from his throat. 

And when Harry goes to bed Louis doesn’t hesitate, draping himself across Harry no matter the temperature in or outside. 

And sometimes, if the time is right, Harry will whisper a goodnight after he thinks Louis has fallen fast asleep, and he’ll hear the most beautiful golden voice reply;

“Goodnight, Haz.”

The hybrid bed sits unused on the floor at the end of Harry’s bed, and Harry wouldn’t have it any other way.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello thank you for reading and as always, you can find me at [Londonfoginacup](http://londonfoginacup.tumblr.com) on tumblr, and the fic post SHOULD be at [this link](http://londonfoginacup.tumblr.com/post/176197596279/the-box-is-the-best-part-of-the-present) (someone remind me to change that, because that link will work for a week lolllllll)


End file.
